


The Mundane Part

by Petronia



Series: The Here Trilogy [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Come Marking, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Season/Series 03, Ravenstag, vaguely sexual dreams about deer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:10:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5904100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petronia/pseuds/Petronia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while, he'd thought that was all it had been: that Will came cheap and was easily owned and had never known that about himself. That Hannibal had taken him in and fed him with friendship, like one of Will's own strays, and taught him how and what and whom to want. Nothing to titillate Freddie Lounds' readership, when you took it apart and looked at it.</p>
<p>But that wasn't the entire truth, either. He knew that. He'd known it all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mundane Part

**Author's Note:**

> An immediate sequel to [Here,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5325767) from Will's perspective.

The next watch was Will's, but he couldn't have gotten up if he'd tried. Since the evening was an exercise in indulgence, he tucked his head into the crook of Hannibal's arm and dozed off. If the boat's movement changed he would wake regardless. The last time he'd sailed he'd been alone, and the boat and he had melded down to the bones. That awareness had never left, it turned out; only become disused.

He was dimly aware of Hannibal pulling away, after a while, and the warm damp of a washcloth passing over his skin. Covers settled over him. Then Hannibal was back, pressed close from behind, an arm draped around Will's waist to hold him close. Hannibal's face buried in his hair, breath hot against his nape.

They weren't supposed to sleep at the same time. But it felt good; it felt better than anything. Will let darkness overtake him, sweet and easy like drowning.

 

*

 

_He was carrying his old shotgun, tracking something through the wood. For a long time he thought he'd lost its trail, but it was close, now – its spoor as clear as lettering in the dawn light. Hoofprints in snow._

_As he walked the drifts seemed to thaw, turning to lacy ice at their edges. His boots sank through them and into the springy bed of needles beneath. Water gathered at the tips of unseen icicles and dripped, sluggish._

_The trees closed in, wet and black._

_Will was not much of a hunter, but his instincts applied as well here as anywhere. The animal was slowing, its pace uncertain. Where particularly low branches crossed its path it turned aside, as if reluctant to break through. But the wood only grew wilder and denser, until Will had to push aside the undergrowth as he walked. It seemed the light was dimming, the sky itself blocked out by a criss-crossing lattice like the bars of a cage._

_Once or twice, on a bent twig, he sighted a streak of blood._

_Then, coming off a slight rise, he saw it: it stood, black and hulking among the trees, with its feet planted apart and very still. Only a slight motion of the air ruffled its feathers, making an iridescent gleam run the length of its flank. The branches had enclosed it entirely._

_Will closed in, slowly, gun raised and pointed at its centre of mass. The stag stared at him, but did not spook or move at all, even to lower its head. Its breath steamed in the cold daylight._

_From a few feet away it became clear. The stag had shed its antlers, in the depth of winter, and now a new rack was growing in. Larger, as jagged and cruel as ever, but still velveted – fuzzy like the silver down on a swelling bud. They seemed almost translucent. They would be spongy to the touch, Will knew: as sensitive as a living tooth, and more friable._

_The stag could not break itself free. It would stand still for the bullet._

_Will set the gun down against a tree, and began pulling at the branches._

_It was hard going; harder than it should have been. It seemed to take hours. Twigs snapped against his face and shredded his gloves. Finally he had cleared a narrow path – only enough for himself to pass through. And the trees seemed to close in again as he did, behind him and out of the corners of his eyes._

_(Were they both trapped, now?)_

_The stag was_ there, _a mere arm's length away, its gaze still fixed on him. He felt its warmth, saw its sides rise and fall with breath. His dark familiar._

_Will took off his gloves, and reached out. He expected nothing – the dissolve of seeming matter into a swirl of smoke, a hallucination – but his questing fingers met and dug into feathers. There was_ down _under the long quills, dense and matte-black and incongruously soft. And beneath that, the solid bulk of animal muscle. Will took an unthinking step forward, then another. Then he was pressing close, leaning against the stag's side._

_The stag lowered its head, a little, and nosed at his cheek. Its breath puffed hot against Will's skin._

 

*

 

When Will woke he was alone.

His first thought was that Hannibal had gone. Then he remembered they weren't supposed to sleep at the same time – then the rest of the night came back to him, in a single heated rush.

Will curled his hand into a fist, then breathed out slowly and let it open. He turned onto his back and opened his eyes and stared at the cabin's low, curved ceiling. They were making progress at a good clip: he felt it in the hull's vibration, the steady manner in which the boat ate up the waves. Hannibal would have woken him if course adjustments needed to be made.

"It could be anyone," he said to himself, softly, to hear what the words sounded like.

They weren't entirely true. It couldn't be any _man,_ for one thing. But the animal need for touch, for satiation and closeness, to wake in the night and know one was not alone...

He tried again, different words: "This is part of it too."

The mundane part.

It might have been the mundane things that hurt the most, in retrospect. A shared smile, a pudding warm from the oven, a ride home with permission to drowse in the front seat, to be silent and safe... When Will had begun seeing Molly he had realized that by and large no one had ever given him such things. Hannibal had been the first.

For a while, then, he'd thought that was all it had been: that Will came cheap and was easily owned and had never known that about himself. That Hannibal had taken him in and fed him with friendship, like one of Will's own strays, and taught him how and what and whom to want. Nothing to titillate Freddie Lounds' readership, when you took it apart and looked at it.

But that wasn't the entire truth, either. He knew that. He'd known it all along.

He heard Hannibal, then, coming below deck. A cabinet door opening and closing; the clunk of a plastic water jug being set down.

_Hannibal,_ he thought, and the abrupt desire to _see_ him was so strong that it drove him from bed and out of the cabin, dragging a blanket around his waist because last night's clothes were nowhere in sight.

Hannibal looked up at the sound of the door opening. Something changed in his expression when he saw Will, soft and undefinable.

"Good morning, Will," he said.

"Good morning," Will said, and looked – indulging himself – until Hannibal dropped his gaze. The kitchenette was much colder than the cabin, and smelled of the fresh coffee Hannibal was making. As Will approached he handed Will a steaming mug, without asking. He never asked. Their fingers brushed as Will took it.

Will took a long sip, then set it down on the counter: he wanted at least one hand free. He waited until Hannibal met his eyes again, then reached up and touched his cheek, brushing strands of hair aside – it was longer now, benignly neglected, and growing in grey. Watched Hannibal's eyes darken with longing, though his face remained still.

_Stay with me,_ he'd said last night.

Will had kissed him and tasted salt. He'd seen him as he had in the BSHCI, during what might have been their last interview: _Think about me, Will._ The monster's heart suspended in the void by spider-thread, cold darkness all around. _Don't worry about me_.

Will had slipped, ruined his own victory by saying too much. But nothing he could have said would have been enough, anyway. Nothing he could say now would be enough.

He tugged, gently, and Hannibal came. Leant in close, his arms looping around Will's waist to hold him there. So that when their lips met Will felt a tremor run through his entire body.

It felt good. It felt intimate. Last night—

Last night had only taken the edge off. Now that Will knew what he wanted.

"Did you want this too?" he murmured, against Hannibal's mouth. The words themselves kisses, barely-formed thoughts. "Is this part of what you imagined?"

Hannibal only shuddered and kissed him harder, with intent, crowding him back against the counter. Then he _lifted_ Will bodily and walked him backward to the cabin's ajar door. Will made an undignified noise and scrambled to hold on, losing his blanket in the process.

"Christ," he said, "Hannibal—" and then he landed with a thump and an ominous squeak on the unmade bed and Hannibal was sliding down his body, nudging his thighs apart. Will hardly had the time to take a breath before Hannibal went straight down on him, and the next sound out of his mouth wasn't words.

" _Oh_ ," he said, "oh my God." His cock had barely had time to become interested, and now he felt it thicken and lift in the wet heat of Hannibal's mouth. Hannibal didn't pull away, didn't seem inclined to breathe even – just put Will's legs over his shoulders and bore down and provided efficient, dirty suction. Within seconds Will could feel himself bump hard against the back of Hannibal's throat. He reached down and grabbed at Hannibal's hair and stuffed the other fist in his mouth to keep from screaming.

It felt like last night: taking what he wanted and being taken, unable to help how good it was. It would always have been good, Will thought wildly. This had been waiting for them too, nonsensical and unacknowledged. But here there was nothing else, no crime or retribution or cruelty or remorse, and no one left for either of them to destroy. Only – only—

When he came he held Hannibal's head down, so he'd have no choice but to swallow. Felt Hannibal choke and struggle to accommodate and God, didn't that feel good, it was vicious, it felt _exquisite_.

Hannibal took it until Will was done, then pulled off. He didn't cough, but his breathing was rough. He loomed over Will, braced on one hand, staring down at him. His pupils were so dilated as to make his eyes seem black. His other hand moved and Will couldn't quite see, but he wanted to watch, wanted to see Hannibal touching himself because Will was—

Hannibal bared his teeth, and his come splattered on Will's stomach, over Will's groin and his wet, softening cock. Enough of it to run down between his legs.

It was like being marked. Will felt himself flush, hard. Then Hannibal reached down, not breaking eye contact, and smeared the mess over Will's stomach, across the full length of the scar he'd made there.

Will made a high-pitched noise and jerked his head to the side, squeezing his eyes shut. His cock jumped; he would have gotten hard again if it were physically possible.

Dimly he felt Hannibal slump by his side, pressing close. He kept his hand where it was, tracing the edge of the scar tissue by touch.

Will turned his head toward him, blindly, and was met with a kiss. Wet, with tongue. Hannibal tasted like semen, like _him,_ and that made Will want to do it all over again.

"I didn't imagine," Hannibal said, after their lips parted. His voice was wrecked. "I couldn't. I didn't know what the reality of you would be like, and I had no desire for approximation. You're beyond my ability to predict, Will."

"Well," Will said, then had to clear his throat and restart. "You're not easy to quantify either."

He felt more than saw Hannibal smile, at that. Hannibal's hand wandered downward, cupping him, and he hissed, sensitive to the touch. But it set off a trailing spark of excitement, more mental than physical: that Hannibal would be free with Will's body like this, as if it belonged to him.

"Do you want more?" he said, before he let himself think about it. "Do you want to fuck me?"

That made Hannibal still. _That's a yes._ But he'd known the answer would be yes.

"I want to be close to you," Hannibal said. "We are conjoined, mind and body. I want—" His voice trailed off and he nuzzled into the curve of Will's shoulder. "Will you do that again?"

"What? I—" But of course Hannibal had liked being used, by Will. The thought of it made Will feel shaky and hot.

"You can do anything you want," Hannibal murmured. He was languid, now, sated, but Will could hear it in his voice still. _Don't leave. It hurts to miss you._

_Stay with me._

It made Will want to make promises, and he didn't know if he could keep them. The world would intrude, sooner or later, even on this side of the veil.

He swallowed and pushed at Hannibal's shoulder. "Let's get cleaned up," he said.

Hannibal only smiled again, and caught his hand, bringing it to his lips.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Mundane Part](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231229) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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